Laurence Stinson

1906 - 1998

“Whittling is making wood get smaller.  When you finish, you have a bunch of shavings.  When you carve, you got something left that’s beautiful.” Lawrence “Larry” Stinson was born in 1906 in Virginia.  He attended school through the 9th grade.  Larry Stinson was a wood carver who grew up in the Shenandoah Valley, where he was exposed to Appalachian craft traditions that have been handed down for generations.  In 1927, he moved from Virginia to the District of Columbia, where he was a “houseman” at the Georgetown Prep School.  On March 29, 1929, he became an engineer/custodian for the National Cathedral and worked there until he retired in 1979.  Stinson began to make religious carvings while employed at the Cathedral and the works were exhibited in the nave of the church from 1976 through 1979.  Stinson eventually withdrew them because some animals from Noah’s Ark disappeared.  Stinson whittled traditional Appalachia chains and dancing men, but his art carving concentrated on religious figures and tableaux – Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, and crucifixes. Stinson made his carvings from pieces of driftwood or from hardwoods that he found in the woods.  He sometimes added bits of plastic or other decorative objects, such as artificial flowers, to the pieces.  His work is not known to museum audiences; since he lost figures at National Cathedral, he would not lend out his work.  He only sold one major tableaux. ²